To understand the country’s frustration with politics, we shouldn’t focus primarily on “gridlock” and “polarization.” The larger problem is a disconnect between what the nation’s capital is talking about and what most citizens are worried about. The issues...

“There is no parallel in history to the [American] experiment of free government on this scale. The scale accounts for a great deal, including . . . pessimism about the present or the future of America.” — Scottish historian D.W. Brogan in “The American Character,” 1944 Just why...

Eliot A. Cohen teaches at Johns Hopkins University. From 2007 to 2008, he was counselor of the State Department. In the first days of a crisis like the Russian invasion of Crimea, the questions are operational: How many troops? Where are they? Should we cancel just the planning...

IT WAS mid-morning Wednesday when Kevin Lau Chun-to stepped out of his car near a Hong Kong restaurant he frequents for breakfast. Mr. Lau, the well-known former chief editor of the Chinese-language daily Ming Pao, was savagely attacked by a man wielding a meat cleaver that...

FOR FIVE YEARS, President Obama has led a foreign policy based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which “the tide of war is receding” and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces....

Napoleon is said to have cautioned during an 1805 battle: “When the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” The citation is also sometimes rendered as “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Whatever the precise wording,...

Michael Singh is managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2005 to 2008, he worked on Middle East issues at the National Security Council. As the United States tries to determine how to respond to Russia’s intervention in Crimea — perhaps the...